7 lies about Syria

By Joyce Chediac

Apr 17, 2017

The U.S. government lied about weapons of mass destruction to invade Iraq. It lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident to invade Vietnam. Trump lied about replacing Obamacare with “something terrific.” His plan would leave 24 million uninsured. He lied about “draining the swamp” in Washington–he quickly jumped in the muck.

Why believe him on Syria?

Lie 1: The Trump administration is “certain” that the Syrian government deliberately used sarin gas on civilians including children at Khan Shaykhun on April 4. That’s why the Pentagon attacked a Syrian air base on April 7.

An April 11 intelligence report the White House presented as “definitive proof” of Syria’s April 4 gassing contains “demonstrably false claims” said Theodore A. Postol, a MIT rocket scientist, National Security Advisor and weapons expert. The report “does not provide any evidence whatsoever that the US government has concrete knowledge that the government of Syria was the source of the chemical attack.”

Videos at the bomb crater site of health workers without the protective gear crucial for protection against sarin contamination “unambiguously show the claims in the [White House report] could not possibly be true,” Postol continued.

Lie 2: The U.S. struck Syria to uphold the international ban on chemical weapons.

Last year, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons declared that, under its oversight, the Syrian government had destroyed all its chemical weapons. This organization of 192 member nations implements the international treaty banning chemical weapons. The U.S. accepted their report.

Lie 3: Washington struck Syria for humanitarian reasons, especially the death of children.

If children’s deaths were the reason, Trump could have looked closer to home. A U.S. air strike on March 17 in Mosul, Iraq, killed some 200 civilians, many of them children. Trump ordered a raid into Yemen in January which killed 23 civilians, 10 of them children. At home, Trump shows contempt for children. His $9 billion cuts to education slash after-school and summer programs, grants for colleges, services for disabilities, hitting poor children the hardest.

Lie 4: The U.S. government and major media used independent and credible sources to confirm the gas attack.

There are no independent reporters on the ground in the in Isis-and-al Nusra- held areas. Information on the alleged sarin gassing come 1) Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a one man organization in London, or 2) the White Helmets.

White Helmets are armed and operate with al-Nusra, which is al Qaida in Syria. The group stages rescue videos, including one exposed by Doctors for Human Rights, where “rescuers” pretend to inject sarin victims with an antidote. White Helmets have received $100,000,000 from western governments including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), known for covert destabilization.

Neither the credibility of sources nor the certainty of a Syrian government sarin attack have been established. Yet virtually the whole Democratic establishment cheered the U.S. air strike. Of the 47 editorials on President Donald Trump’s Syria airstrikes run in top newspapers 39 were in favor, seven ambiguous and only one opposed to the U.S. attack.

Lie 5: The U.S. is fighting the terrorists. Assad and his Alawite group fight a civil war and killing their own people, especially Syrian Sunnis.

Some of the most powerful positions in the Syrian government are held by Sunnis, including the Prime Minister, Justice Minister, Foreign Minister and Defense Minister. Most of the delegates sent to Geneva several times to represent the Syrian government in peace talks were Sunni. The army is a majority Sunni, Damascus, where the government is based, a majority Sunni city, as is the areas of Syria that the Assad government controls.

This Syrian government is defending itself against a foreign and mostly U.S.-financed invasion of Islamic extremists who kill based upon identity and religious belief. They have killed many Sunni Syrians who worship differently from them, or who oppose their practices. They seek to overthrow Syria’s secular government and replace it with one that is theocratic, ultra-conservative, misogynist, and intolerant of Syria‘s 22 religious and cultural groups.

Lie 6: The U.S. supports and arms the moderate rebels and fights the extremists.

U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Democrat from Hawaii and combat veteran, visited Aleppo and Damascus in January. “Everyone there said there are no moderate rebels. There is al Nusra or al Qaida and Isis. All smaller groups are under them or fighting along side them,” she said.

In 2012 the New York Times reported that most of the weapons sent to Syria wind up with the. hands of the jihadists.

Lie 7: Assad is hated by his own people.

Assad won the 2014 presidential elections in Syria by a landslide, with international observers claiming no violations. When the Syrian Arab Army took Aleppo in December 2016 videos showed by the thousands in the streets cheering Assad and his army.

Gabbard continued “The Syrian people know that if Assad is overthrown that a group like Al Qaida, which is killing Christians, killing people simply because of their religion, or simply because they won’t support their terror activities, they will take charge of all of Syria. This is the
reality the people of Syria are facing on the ground, and why they are pleading with us here in the U.S. top stop supporting these terrorists groups and let the Syrian people determine their future, not the United States, not some foreign country.”

Gabbard has angered top Democrats for opposing the Trump administration on Syria. Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, called Gabbard “a disgrace” who “should not be in Congress.”

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